At this point you should be a Lieutenant with about 1400 Prestige, 35000 Food, 15000 Lumber, 20000 Stone, 25000 Iron

49. Build Farm level 2 Speed it up

49. Build 6 Sawmill level 3 Speed it up

50. Build 3 Quarry level 3 Speed it up

Continue building up 11 Sawmill level 3, and 6 Quarry level 3

Build cottages to keep population from going red (eventually you will want 10 or 11 cottages in your city)

51. Build Academy level 2 when resources allow Turn in quest

52. Research Masonry

53. Build Barracks level 2 Turn in quest

54. Research Mining

55. Build Academy level 3 Turn in quest

56. Research Informatics Speed it up

57. Research Military Tradition

58. Train 10 Scouts in your Barracks

59. Build Barracks level 3 Turn in quest

60. Train 10 Pikemen

At this point you should be a Knight with about 2100 Prestige, 40000 Food, 15000 Lumber, 7500 Stone, 10000 Iron

61. Build Marketplace level 2

Recommended resources to have: 12 sawmills, 4 quarry, 3 food, 3 iron

Explanation: 12 sawmills as stated earlier most valuable resource. 4 quarries you need stone to build and reasonably priced if you wanted to cut down to 1 quarry but this requires you to spend more time watching market, 3 food is low but food is very cheap and while in beginner protection you don't need to feed an army until the 7th day at which point you can upgrade town hall and build all the farms you want, 3 iron because archers use iron, again like stone you can have one but that requires you to spend even more time watching market.

I used these steps when I started they worked well for me.

Tip: I will just say this once now. The market is a great way to get gold. If you watch it you will see sometimes you can be the highest bidder and lowest seller while making 20%-50% profit! Expecially when a server is new prices are unstable, pay attention to them and you will make more then enough to pay for the research you need.My suggestion on finding an alliance: start on page one! If an alliance is in top 50 it is active that is most important. Now starting from page one look for an alliance that says in its description something such as "We are based in". So the first alliance you see starting from the first page that says it is based in your area apply. If they reject you ask what is the prestige requirement or if they have a second devision you can join (example Romans RomansII). If they do not respond keep moving down the list until you find one. This worked for me I am in a great alliance with alot of active people in the top 10. (Server 52 alliance UENO)

Day Two: Build cottages you want about 10 or 11 in each of your cities. Upgrade resources starting with sawmills. make warriors. While building warriors upgrade barracks to level 4. Research lumber to level 5. Research construction. Once level 4 Barracks is reached and warriors are done build archers. Be sure to find a hero today with attack above 65! Start leveling this hero immediately by conqouring 4 valleys using the archers and warriors you have built. Still got time? Go back to upgrading and researching resources!Second City: Get this today. Build level 1 inn. Build level 1 feasting hall. Find a hero with 60+ politics as soon as possible. Build an Academy, upgrade it as soon as possible so resource fields get boost from research and most importantly construction. Build level 1 rally point. Build resources, upgrade resources, once resources are to high to upgrade instantly if you have time keep upgrading, once your out of time upgrade your townhall and call it a day.

The image below shows the heroes I found. The highlighted hero is my intelligence hero and his stats make him the best hero I have even though his level is low:

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Day Three: Upgrade resources. Upgrade barracks to level 8, if you can start level 9 upgrade this evening. Research level up to level 6 archery. Research Iron working up to level 6. By now you should have your four valleys. You should continue attacking valleys without loss to gain xp for your attack hero and for the chance of finding a medal. If you do find a medal immediately jump up, do a dance and sing a song! Because you are one lucky SOB! Second City: Upgrade resources, upgrade townhall. Once your townhall is level 4, send your troops with your attack hero to this city. Once your troops are at this city conqour 4 valleys and get your valley boosts. If possible you want all your valleys lumber valleys. When you have done this continue attacking valleys for chance to find a medal and experience. It does not matter what city you keep your troops in.

Day Four: Build level 9 barracks. Switch mayor to your attack hero then Start 250 bastillas (use napoleons to speed up 30% the finish time once applied should be less then 72 hours if you have proper attack hero) You do NOT need to have your attack hero as mayor while troops train so once ballistas are started switch back to political hero. Keep attacking valleys in hopes of getting a medal and to level attack hero. Continue to research construction and resources. You should have found an intelligence hero with 65+ in his intelligence attribute if you haven't find one quickly you will need it tomorrow.Second City: Have this city contributing to research remember the 100% tax rate tip, use it! Both cities as much as possible 100% tax, disaster relief every 24 minutes! Keep building up resources.

Day Five: If you managed to keep up so far congratulations. There is one more thing you must do if you plan to attack level four npc when protection wears off. Research level 7 archery! Yes it costs a lot but if you do not start it soon it wont be ready for when your beginner protection wears off and your stuck with level 1-3 npcs are likely being farmed right now and by the time you get there will be dried up. So today get level 7 archery MAKE SURE TO HAVE YOUR INTELLIGENCE HERO AS MAYOR BEFORE YOU START RESEARCH!!! once research is started however you can switch your mayor back to political hero. Continue to upgrade resources and attack valleys.Second City: Continue to upgrade resources, research construction and resources.

Day Six: Ok so the hard part is done, now for the easy part. Upgrade resources, research construction and resources. BUILD ARCHER TOWERS! The more the better idealy you will have 1k for both your cities by the end of beginner protection so start now. Keep attacking valleys and leveling your attack hero(es) you may have more then one by now which is great it will let you attack more npcs/players at one time. Make sure if you plan to do this you upgrade rally point a few times does not take long to get to level 4. Second City: Build up resources, upgrade wall and when you can build archer towers. If you have enough gold continue to research resources and construction.</insert>

Day Seven: This is the big day your 250 ballistas will be finishing and you will be able to farm the npcs. However if you upgraded your resources properly you are a high prestige 30-60k prestige. This will attract alot of attention to you! People will think of you as an easy target that if you grew this fast you have no army! Depending on what you want to do and your style of play now is the time to build either warrior and archer combo or alot of scouts to keep you hidden detturing attacks. Also now is the time to fill in all those empty plots with barracks. I personally had 5k warriors 1k archers and 4k scouts. That is just me though I wanted to have 4k scouts so I could remain unkown and use that to intimidate people into joining our alliance. Although I purposesly left out one thing this entire time it is allways good to read ahead and for those who did: YOU NEED 350 TRANSPORTS! You cant expect your ballistas to kill everyone and carry everything! So make sure you build those as well.

If you did everything I said in this guide your protection is now wearing off, you are sending your ballistas/transports to raid the closest lvl 4 npc, leaving your city defended by your warriors, archers and archer towers. You are well on your way to dominating Evony!

My first attack on level four npc: battle52.evony.com/default.html?logfile/20090822/de/df dedf8c145ba786d6adf269d8e29291a2.xml

(I actually had time to make an extra 30 ballistas however 250 is enough)

Useful sources:

All about ballistas and research needed for lvl 5 npc ->

<insert></insert>[URL="http://bbs.evony.com/showthread.php?t=42643"]http://bbs.evony.com/showthread.php?t=4264[/URL]<insert>[URL="http://bbs.evony.com/showthread.php?t=42643"]3 [/URL](note: Level 1&2 npc only require lvl 6 archery and any level horseback, level 3&4 npc requires level 7 archery and any level horseback however level 5 requires a combo of archery and horseback this is what the guide covers best. ***Note it is not clear but this thread the list of horseback and archery combinations are for level 5 NPCS*** They do not say this and sadly it causes confusion in an otherwise perfect guide)

Evony wiki covers all the building costs/times for every unit and building also has other useful information ->